The Kerala government said on Saturday that 90 percent of the fire at the Brahmapuram waste treatment plant has been extinguished and efforts are on to extinguish the rest of the affected area.
An expert committee meeting chaired by Additional Chief Secretary A Jayathilak today took stock of the situation and discussed methods to tackle the problem of smoke pollution emanating from the smoldering waste plant near Kochi city.
Meanwhile, a Supreme Court-appointed monitoring committee inspected the site on Saturday and said the fire has been doused in five sectors of the plant, with efforts to douse it in the last two sectors. The committee will submit a report to the high court on its findings regarding the fire that broke out at a sewage treatment plant run by the city corporation on March 2.
On 5 March, the Ernakulam district administration declared a holiday for children in all schools in Kochi Corporation areas and nearby municipalities and gram panchayats as huge and thick clouds of toxic smoke billowing from the site engulfed the city.
“The fire has been extinguished in 90 per cent of the area inside the Brahmapuram waste plant. It was challenging as the fire spread to the bottom of the heap. The smoke is now being controlled by pumping water into sumps which are taken out using excavators.” among the pile of garbage,” newly appointed District Collector N S K Umesh said in the report.
The district administration said that currently 170 firemen, 32 excavator operators, 11 navy personnel, four CIAL personnel, six BPCL personnel, 71 civil defense personnel, 30 city corporation employees and 20 home guards are involved in the effort to douse the fire completely.
23 firefighting units, 32 excavators and three high-pressure pumps are currently deployed to extinguish the smoke. Meanwhile, an expert panel that met today assessed that the current mechanism of extinguishing smoke from smoldering fires is the most effective method to deal with the menace.
“The meeting also discussed proposals to put out the fire completely and to ensure that similar incidents do not recur. The Pollution Control Board was instructed to conduct a risk analysis of the toxic smoke generated,” the report said.
Environmental scientists from Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT), MG University, Fire and Safety Department of CUSAT, National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology (NIIST), experts from Directorate of Environment and Climate Change, members of Disaster Management Expert committee meeting with authorities, fire and rescue service personnel, various officials of the Central State Pollution Control Board attended.
The state government also announced that a survey of the areas around Brahmapuram to assess the health problems caused by smoke pollution will begin from Tuesday. Today, Health Minister Veena George chaired a comprehensive meeting of the ministry to review the situation and urged children, the elderly, pregnant women and those with other illnesses to wear face coverings when going out.
George said the government will be able to use the survey to identify those affected by the smoke and provide treatment. The district priority site team and field workers will be trained to conduct house-to-house survey to analyze what the actual situation is on the ground, the government said earlier.
The health department has also earmarked “dangerous smoke victims” in hospitals and earmarked 100 beds at Ernakulam General Hospital and 20 beds at Tripunithura Taluk Hospital for patients coming from affected areas.
The Kerala government on Friday announced an action plan to be implemented on a war footing to ensure that such incidents do not happen again in the state.
Under the 82-day action plan, strict measures would be taken for source-level management of biodegradable waste and for door-to-door collection of non-biodegradable waste in the state. According to local authority officials, such fires occur every year at this time due to extreme heat.
